So said BP Jim Molinaro of the Staten Island shoreline, from the tip of Tottenville to Bay Street Landing in St. George, and most everywhere in between.

From 500-feet up, during a nearly 90-minute helicopter ride on a blue-sky morning last week -- "the calm after the storm," as pilot Al Cerullo put it -- the devastation that Hurricane Sandy had wrought was evident.

Vast amounts of debris at the foot of Conference House Park and beyond: Pieces of wood scattered everywhere, large trees felled, houses caved in, cars battered and boats broken.

Then there was what could pass as garbage but, doubtless, was the household remnants of so many who fled, and those who didn't.

And sand covering streets still, "blocks up from the beach," said Molinaro.

On Yetman Avenue in Tottenville, just a slab of foundation where a squat house once stood, the place where a father and daughter had perished.

And yet, right across the street, a sturdy multi-story house, on steel stilts, looked relatively untouched.

Near Club Surfside, with its windows covered in plywood, a boat rested on its side.

Will this storm result in a change in value of waterfront property, Molinaro was asked.

"Oh, no question," said Molinaro.

The roadways on the Mount Loretto preserve "just washed away, cut in two," noted Molinaro. "The water tunneled right underneath the shore. It looks like all little caves in there."

A pass over the fishing pier at Sharrotts Road revealed the water from Sandy's storm surge "rose above it and covered it because all the boats were left alongside it and at the entrance of the pier," Molinaro observed.

Beach erosion was clearly evident in spots, with great ragged chunks of earth eaten away.

Many of the waterfront fortress-like homes on Nicolosi Drive in Huguenot withstood Mother Nature's onslaught on the exterior, but others suffered damage. At some, bulldozers were already at work, placing boulders around the houses to build a sea wall.

In Annadale and Eltingville, whole back yards were in ruins or gone completely, pools were caved in and again trees uprooted.

At Great Kills Harbor and inland, dozens and dozens of boats lay strewn together, many partially submerged, and docks lay in ruins.

"It's like the boats were just dropped here," said Molinaro.

At Oakwood Beach, the view from above revealed "houses buried, moved, all wiped out," said the borough president.

One home appeared sheared in half horizontally, with what looked to be the roof resting yards away in the reeds.

At Cedar Grove Beach in New Dorp, little appeared left of the once-coveted summer bungalows passed down through generations of families that the city lay claim to a few years ago. And the massive destruction to others, winterized for year-round living, was stark.

The same was true in Midland Beach, where parts of blocks looked flattened, with fronts of homes and garage doors blown out.

The children's park at South Beach, one of Molinaro's most recent pet projects, had its concrete underpinnings upended and covered with sand.

Boats were upended in Rosebank, too, and the tanker ship, run aground at the old homeport in Stapleton, still remains after Sandy deposited it there.

At Bay Street Landing, street-level windows were boarded up.

And yet, from above, there were inspiring sights.

The steeple of Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Cedar Grove Avenue stood tall and proud.

The Pavilion on the South Beach boardwalk was still in good shape.

And Postcards, the 9/11 memorial steps from the Richmond County Ball Park and the St. George ferry terminal, solid.

They were beacons of resiliency, the kind of resiliency Staten Island -- its residents and its elected officials -- will need in the months and likely years ahead as the renewal of the coastline begins in earnest.